


Spoilers

by ahappyphil, Fictropes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2010, 2021, time travel but not really??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29404824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahappyphil/pseuds/ahappyphil, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictropes/pseuds/Fictropes
Summary: “Fuck.” His younger self lets out a shaky breath, then he manages to compose himself enough to ask, “Do we have a dog?”
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 45
Kudos: 165





	Spoilers

Maybe it was the family sized cake they finished off right before bed. Maybe it was the bottle of the good booze they knocked down with it, paired with the conversation spiral in bed about life and love and who he’s become.

Either way it resulted in Dan, on the night of his 30th birthday, standing in what appears to be his childhood bedroom.

Only he’s _not_ here. Is he? He must be dreaming. Or maybe Phil’s bullshit tangents about alternate realities and parallel universes are actual legit.

No, it’s got to be a dream. There is no other explanation for the younger twiggier version of himself to be paralyzed and wide eyed staring right back at him. Like he’d seen a ghost. Like he’s dreaming too.

“Okay. Alright. Fuck. Don’t freak out. You’re Dan? Okay I’m Dan. I’m you from the future.”

Fuck how does he explain this.

“I’m—you? You’re me?”

“Yes. You. Me. We’re the same, apart from I’m obviously older.” Current Dan’s supposed to be the intelligent one here, the one to talk himself down. He’s making it worse, he thinks, gone into full on panic mode. He’s all hand gestures that don’t make any sense.

“I’m dreaming. I have to be dreaming. Fucking, god, too much Malibu. This isn’t real.” Younger Dan is tugging at his hair, like that’ll pull all this weirdness directly out of his brain. If he gets rid of the idea itself, he gets rid of the grown up version of himself that’s stood in his bedroom.

“Yeah.” Dan hurries to agree, because that’s what he’d been trying to get at. This not being real. “We’re dreaming. One of us is dreaming.”

“Me.”

“Yeah.” Dan says, because it seems easier that way. If he lets this version of himself be the one in charge. “You’re dreaming.”

“Hmpppf.” Younger Dan flops, all starfished out on that single bed that had always been too small for him.

“What?” Dan laughs, he’d forgotten just how much he was like—this. He’s not exactly grown out of it, can still pout and huff and wind Phil up something rotten with his amateur dramatics.

“I wanted to actually be taller than _him_ , not just in my dreams.”

“Oh.” Dan blinks. He’d not thought they were quite there yet, being taller than a certain someone, because this Dan can’t be talking about anybody else. “What year is it? For you, I mean. Like right now. Do you have a boyfriend yet? No wait, shit. Spoilers. How old are you right now?”

“I’ve been with my boyfriend for 6 months. What the fuck is going o-”

“Shut up, I’m doing math. You’ve been with Phil for 6 months? Okay so you’re still 18”

Dan’s too caught up in his own mental calculations to notice the shift in energy.

“Phil? You still know Phil?” He bites his lip and looks down at his own feet. That name seems to take him out of it, sat bolt upright like he no longer believes it’s a dream. “Are we sti-no wait don’t tell me. How long did we-. Nevermind, no no no. I don’t want to know.”

“No, Phil’s not my boyfriend anymore if that’s what you’re asking.” Dan says, and he thinks the smile he’s got plastered on is enough. But it’s not because the other Dan looks devastated, about two seconds away from bursting into tears.

He’s sensitive, he knows that. Idiot.

“He’s my husband.” Dan rushes to add on, desperate to clarify and wipe that look off his own face.

Dan’s head snaps up, eyes narrowed and filled with tears that hadn’t quite been spilt. “We—really? Let me see.”

Dan offers out his hand, gold ring catching the light of a laptop screen. When he turns his head he’s not surprised to see a Skype conversation with Phil there, all stupid emojis and the language of the loved up.

It never changes. They’re still stupid, still loved up.

“Fucking shitting fuck.” His younger self can’t stop touching, spinning the ring around and around like he can’t quite believe it’s real.

“We bought a house”

“We have a house?” He asks, gravitating towards him like the closer he can sit the more he can learn. Dan thinks about the butterfly effect, how he’s probably already said too much. He just likes to show off when it comes to Phil, to prove to everyone that the impossible worked for them. Against all the odds they made it. “In Manchester?”

“London, actually. We moved there for erm...work.”

“You bought a house in fucking London?! What are you? A bloody millionaire.” He laughs, waiting on older Dan to join in on the obvious joke.

Dan just shuffles his feet. Of all the people he’d feel unbearably awkward talking about his finances to, he didn’t add his teenage self to the list. Admitting to it all here in the brown bedroom he thought he’d never escape from is sobering, and it almost feels too much like gloating.

“No fucking way! We’re rich? How? What do you do?” The energy is quickly dropped to something almost painful. “You some big wig lawyer or something?”

“Fuck no.” He doesn’t know the laws of...whatever the hell this is...but he assumes advice giving is strictly forbidden. But fuck, he wants to tell this kid some things. Save him, both of them, some heartbreak.

“So what do you do?” There’s some spark back in his voice. “Are we famous?”

“First of all, ew.” Dan wrinkles his nose, head suddenly invaded by all those awful newspaper articles he’d had to do. “Don’t say that word. Secondly, spoilers. It’s against the rules or whatever. You’ve seen movies right?”

“What if—what if I stop something bad from happening?”

“No.”

Younger Dan rolls his eyes, but he should _know_ how stubborn they are. “But it’s not law? You promise? I hate it.” He’s fiddling with one of the many grubby festival bracelets tied to his wrist.

“It’s not law.” Dan assures, stepping closer to place an awkward hand over his own to stop the fidgeting. “You’re gonna break that.”

It’s insane how small he used to be, how bony he feels beneath his own finger tips. “It’s something you’re really passionate about.”

“And… do we do it with Phil?” He asks, because he’s smart, because he’s picked up on the crumbs Dan has dropped down at his feet.

“Yeah, we do it with Phil.”

“Can I see a photo of him? Is he still fit? Bet he’s fit if I look like _this_.”

“You flirting with me?” Dan asks, wondering if this falls into clone territory, then wondering if what he said in _that_ video applies here.

“Shut up.” Baby Dan sounds flustered, all this pink now sat on his cheeks “Let me see him. How old is he now?”

“34.”

“That’s so old holy crap.”

“Oi, Bitch, we’re 30 now!”

That makes him go silent, but a different kind, stunned almost. The kind he felt earlier this evening when whispering to Phil how he never thought he’d s-

“S’weird….didn’t think I’d make it to 30.”

Oh. Dan’s heart properly hurts, and he suddenly wants to say fuck the rules. Wants to do an entire damn PowerPoint presentation on their life, show how he’s not only still living but how he’s thriving.

“We did, and I’m so proud of us.”

“Yeah.” His younger self nods, pushes his fringe out of his face in a way that Dan knows means he doesn’t know what else to do. A push of distraction. “I’m glad, I think. I mean, Phil and looking like that.” He laughs.

“You’ve got stop with the flirting, might be illegal.”

“I’m legal.” He smirks, but he pretty quickly straightens his face out when he gets a look aimed his way. “Sorry, sorry.”

The bracelet finally snaps after the 100th time he twirls it around his wrist. Dan picks it up off the floor and holds it for a minute, reading the faded ‘Reading Festival’ print. Maybe he can spoil one or two things.

“You know we did a few of these. Me and Phil.”

“What? Like you went together? Phil said he hates tents.” Baby Dan seems put out.

“Technically for work.” He hopes he’s hiding the giddiness bubbling up in his chest as he stuffs the bracelet in his pocket. “Some stuff on stage, hanging out with some bands, seeing Pete and Patrick again which is always nice.”

Baby Dan looks like he is quite literally about to shit himself. “You’re fucking with me. You’re actually fucking with me.”

He whips out his iPhone, hoping that’s not too much of a spoiler itself to google an image because weirdly google works in this not dream, and shows the screen. “They’re cool dudes. When they’re not prank calling me.” He’s allowed to be a little smug...for the sake of the kid.

“Oh my god.” Young Dan is still frozen until once again the burst of energy appears from thin air. God, he really goes from naught to 100 doesn’t he. “Show me more!” The lightbulb goes on like he’s remembered his priorities. “Show me Phil!”

He pulls up the holiday folder on his phone and gives it to the now bouncing teenager next to him. Most of the important pictures are saved on hard drives or printed out and tucked away for safety, but he can’t help but keep a few saved on his camera roll.

He’s silent for the longest stretch of time since he’s been here. Mouth opened, scrolling through each photo, then going back like he didn't fully register it the first time.

“He’s…”

“I know, right. Aged like a fine wine.” He snorts at his own dad joke that apparently only he found funny.

“Gorgeous.”

He’s laying back on his bed like seeing grown up Phil has caused his legs to stop working. Dan pretends he doesn’t see the blush as he lifts his legs to his chest. Ah, being 18.

“Is that bloody Hobbiton?? IS THAT FUCKING JAPAN?!”

After more silence there’s a shift in energy. “No, this isn’t real! This can’t be real!” He throws the phone on the bed.

It hurts to see himself like this. To immediately reject all the good things about his life.

“I promise you it’s real. It’s all real.” He gently sits on the bed next to the curled up ball of limbs and hair. “You made it. People love you. Even you kind of love you.” He wraps his arms around himself filled with a mixture of older brother protectiveness and also maybe some weird self love thing he’ll want to dissect with his therapist. “It gets so much better. You’re happy. Like, genuinely happy. That’s real.”

“Fuck.” His younger self lets out a shaky breath, then he manages to compose himself enough to ask, “Do we have a dog?”

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

Dan wakes up to a snoring Phil tucked into his side, a fair amount of drool drying on his skin. It’s a normal morning in the house they’d built from the ground up, all this light filtering in from the cracks in the curtains. But Dan can’t shake the feeling of something being off. Can’t stop thinking about the face of his younger self.

It’d felt so fucking real, but it couldn’t have been. He’s in the exact same spot he’d fallen asleep in. There’s no eighteen year old Dan stood in their bedroom, and there’s definitely no thirty year old Dan missing. Because he’s right here, where he belongs.

He’s apparently thinking too loudly because Phil grumbles and shoves at him, a small shut up leaving his mouth. It’s still early, he can still hear the birds singing outside. Dan wants to turn over and go back to sleep but his brain is being stubborn, all this loud that won’t shut up. He stares at his hand, tries to work out if he’d used it to comfort his younger self, tries to work out if any of it happened at all.

It can’t have done.

He wants it to have happened.

The thought of having some form of comfort, some form of reassurance, during that period of his life is a nice one. He remembers how messy he’d felt inside, the whirlwind of thoughts he couldn't control, a mouth that was too loud and too eager to please everyone. He would’ve liked someone to tell him it all works out, that he no longer feels this need to spread himself thin to make everyone but himself happy.

“You’re thinking too much, go sleep.” Phil whines, but Dan knows he could force him up if he needed to. If Phil thought he really needed him up.

“You go to sleep.”

“I am asleep.”

“Then shut up.”

“I can bite your armpit where I am right now.” Phil warns, and Dan hears the clacking of teeth. A warning noise of the weird kind.

“Do you think time travel exists?”

“Weird dream?” Phil asks, and he sounds a bit more awake now. Now he knows Dan actually wants him awake.

“Mhm, something like that.” Dan murmurs, threading his fingers through Phil’s flatented quiff. He’s trying to get it to stand up through sheer want alone, but it flops everytime. “Do you remember eighteen year old me?”

“Of course I remember eighteen year old you.” Phil laughs, like Dan’s being a bit of an idiot for ever thinking he could forget. “Drove me insane.”

“In an evil way?”

“Best way. Loved him, love you.”

“I wish he knew that… I’m ok. That we’re ok.” Dan sighs, sinking further down into the covers because suddenly the idea of being asleep again sounds really appealing. He’s got all this weird guilt all of a sudden, feels terrible about being alright when somewhere in the world an eighteen year old version of himself is suffering through all this _doubt_.

“Dan.” Phil wriggles about until he’s sat up, until he can place a hand on either of Dan’s cheeks and steal away all his focus. “You’re him, and you know you’re ok.”

“I guess.” Dan shrugs, and he’s prepared to sulk for a little while about things out of his control until he sees it. “Phil, fuck, Phil.”

“What?”

“Is that my fucking bracelet?” It’s tangled around Phil’s wrist, like it’d been tied back up after snapping. He wants to pinch himself, then pinch Phil, wonders if you can have a dream within a dream.

Fuck, did he break a rule or something.

“Yeah.” Phil confirms with a nod after taking a peak. It’s too calm a reaction, he’d been there when Dan yeeted it off the face of the earth. He gets a bit of a sinking feeling, got to be something Phil isn’t telling him. “You remember when I turned thirty? And… I woke up all sweaty and weird? And I told you it was just a stupid dream about like… young me?”

“I do, yeah.” Dan says, desperate for the confirmation from Phil that he’d gotten to do something. Gotten to help himself in the oddest way possible. “Actually I do.”

“Well. I don’t actually think it was a dream, Dan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Reblog [here](https://ahappydnp.tumblr.com/post/643030385433903104/spoilers)


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